Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Wearily, Kreega scrambled up on top of the rock andcrouched there....
duel on SYRTIS
by POUL ANDERSON
he night whispered the message. Over the many miles of loneliness itwas borne, carried on the wind, rustled by the half-sentient lichensand the dwarfed trees, murmured from one to another of the littlecreatures that huddled under crags, in caves, by shadowy dunes. In nowords, but in a dim pulsing of dread which echoed through Kreega'sbrain, the warning ran—
They are hunting again.
Kreega shuddered in a sudden blast of wind. The night was enormousaround him, above him, from the iron bitterness of the hills to thewheeling, glittering constellations light-years over his head. Hereached out with his trembling perceptions, tuning himself to thebrush and the wind and the small burrowing things underfoot, lettingthe night speak to him.
Alone, alone. There was not another Martian for a hundred miles ofemptiness. There were only the tiny animals and the shivering brushand the thin, sad blowing of the wind.
The voiceless scream of dying traveled through the brush, from plantto plant, echoed by the fear-pulses of the animals and the ringinglyreflecting cliffs. They were curling, shriveling and blackening as therocket poured the glowing death down on them, and the withering veinsand nerves cried to the stars.
Kreega huddled against a tall gaunt crag. His eyes were like yellowmoons in the darkness, cold with terror and hate and a slowlygathering resolution. Grimly, he estimated that the death was beingsprayed in a circle some ten miles across. And he was trapped in it,and soon the hunter would come after him.
He looked up to the indifferent glitter of stars, and a shudder wentalong his body. Then he sat down and began to think.
t had started a few days before, in the private office of the traderWisby.
"I came to Mars," said Riordan, "to get me an owlie."
Wisby had learned the value of a poker face. He peered across the rimof his glass at the other man, estimating him.
Even in God-forsaken holes like Port Armstrong one had h